Do the frames bear a resemblance, yes; however, the people that are buying these "knock-offs" aren't the same people that are in the market for a (insert high-end knocked-off bike frame here). The argument that somehow this diminishes the market for high-end bikes is silly and frankly doesn't hold water. This isn't music piracy or the like where intellectual property is being sold and the market is undermined. These frames look similar....they are no the same and they do not perform the same so really the argument is totally moot.

+1 (except arguments are always moot by definition

It would be different if the knockoffs were regarded as the equivalent of the originals though.

I should have known it was you. Shame on you for thinking it was even mildly funny and not offensive to Asian people. I guess its a fair dinkum situation for you as an Aussie telling Chinese people what is or isn't offensive to a culture that isn't yours. Don't even try to defend yourself.

I should have known it was you. Shame on you for thinking it was even mildly funny and not offensive to Asian people. I guess its a fair dinkum situation for you as an Aussie telling Chinese people what is or isn't offensive to a culture that isn't yours. Don't even try to defend yourself.

Are you Chinese Bones or are you just guessing what Chinese find offensive? Because when you make claims like that it is much the same as saying Chinese are precious, politically correct, and over sensitive. I know what I'd find insulting.

bmw does not produce any cars in china, joint venture to produce cheap cars meant for the asian market doesnt mean they produce x5 m5 or any of there high end cars in china - not even the low end 3 or 1 series are made in china. parts yes, but not any major part.

on the other hand, bike manufactures produce their best and highest end frames in china (excluding cervelo R5 Ca). if wiki is all you got, you better fact check your shhhh...

for those that think china hasnt been stealing technology for years, you should read your history. though i will say this, the french took gun powder from china. japanese took their characters for language, but the japanese say their implementation is better and less complicated... ha.

jordo99 wrote:

First off, Chinese carbon products are not equal to the high-end name brand parts. If someone tells you otherwise they're probably lying. There are two reasons for this; technology that goes into developing the parts and quality of the carbon used (there are likely other things such as expertise of the frame builder, accuracy of the machinery...but those could honestly go either way)

Technology that goes into these bikes, is different is that what your saying? they are built in the same factory by the same people (most of the time) - laminate schedule, fiber and resin will be very similar, they will not want to gamble with success. if they are built in the factory the machinery is the same? thus the end product being very similar. dont you think they learn how to build their own copies, when they build a large majority of name brand bikes in your own shop? come on.

jordo99 wrote:

For the technology I'll refer to my FM098 (Venge copy) as an example but it encompasses nearly all Chinese carbon products (at least for cycling). I've seen both bikes an hour apart (I had to grab a shifter clamp as I lost one of mine) and there are some very noticeable differences:

First, the Venge is lighter and stiffer (100-150g lighter...I haven't ridden one but I've heard they're a little stiffer). That is because the FM098 is built up with Toray 800T carbon. I'm not sure what the Venge is made from but it is probably toray 1000T quality or better (the "high-end" chinese carbon frames are 1000T). This doesn't necessarily mean the Venge is safer...only that it requires fewer layers of carbon (less weight) to make the frame as stiff as they want it.

you didnt ride one, your going by what someone else told you and no real world test to see which one is stiffer, hmmm. but i believe you. ok, here we go.

if you took 2 mins, you would know that toray T800 (not 800T) is the same stiffness as T1000 (exactly the same 294Gpa). so to make a bike with the same stiffness would require same amount of ply's; 10 ply's of T1000 and T800 would net the same stiffness if you used the same resin. T1000 has a higher tensile strength and a 0.1% advantage for elongation at break, which can be compensated for with the use of a different resin. stronger doesn't mean stiffer. please do more research before you talk about something you know nada about. im not bashing on you per say, but your information is flawed. if the venge uses all T1000 also depending on resin - impact resistant toughened resin it would technically be safer than a bike using a lower tensile strength carbon.

ill give a quick example... carbon rims and the issue of de lamination should have never happened, especially to a companies like enve or reynolds, where we pay top dollar for a carbon rim $750 or more. why should it have never happened, because their is resin that can take up 2500°F of temperature. they use them on helicopter blades. its been in use for years!!! but cost is high for BMI resin's usually upwards of $100/lb. seriously how much do we need for a rim and we dont need 2500°F protection because a rim will never get that hot, we just need protection up to 650 -700, after that your tubes pop anyway, maybe even before. these companies used stuff that would only go to 400 - 450. but they knew these problems would happen. if they did not know ignorance is not an excuse for lack of testing.

btw, the price of t1000 and t800 is not that great for building a bike. where it gets really expensive are the high modulus fibers. a good fiber for a bike would be IM10 fiber from hexcel - has about the same tensile strenth as T1000 but it is stiffer at the expense of elongation 0.1% (very little).

bmw does not produce any cars in china, joint venture to produce cheap cars meant for the asian market doesnt mean they produce x5 m5 or any of there high end cars in china - not even the low end 3 or 1 series are made in china.

bmw does not produce any cars in china, joint venture to produce cheap cars meant for the asian market doesnt mean they produce x5 m5 or any of there high end cars in china - not even the low end 3 or 1 series are made in china.

Didn't read the rest of your post - it's not worth loosing my time, when there's such a mistake in the first sentence...

i guess i am wrong... did not know they started to build in china, besides making parts. are they also making engine and full assembly in china? interesting. would like to know if they are still in south africa as well.

well i am glad you read the first part, because i would have not known this bit of info. thanks for pointing it out. i dont mind being wrong. if i am wrong, call me on it, just like i will do to others.

If you had a choice between me going to a local shop, buying eggs, ham, cream, cheese, and cooking you an omelette, or Gorden Ramsey arriving with the ingredients, then cooking in your kitchen at home, who would you chose?

So you compare gourmet food to bike frame moulds. Probably a better analogy is whether I would prefer you or Gordon to press the microwave button in that case.

Off topic- The Chinese have been very smart making foreign auto giants come and share manf of cars in China with local companies. Local companies get to learn/copy, and money stays in the local economy more.

From what I know, a lot of the manf knowledge is actually held in the larger factories who do all the tooling design etc. The industrial design and product direction is controlled and driven by the OEM."We want to do this, lets work together so you can design/manf what we want"Not saying there isn't knowledge held at companies like Cannondale, Trek, Specialized etc, just that the factories do contain a lot of lessons learnt from developing new products with OEMs.

So they have the know how, but they don't have the distribution for their own designs hence they use the open mold method. Since they are now not aiming for top of the pile brands who take pride in their pro tour performance equipment, price is more important than all the finer points and hence less development and iterations are done. Some of these very similar looking designs may even be projects given to the design team when the OEM work load drops off.Hence a frame can be modeled after a venge, but not have all the finer details as once it was good enough it is released. However the venge would have been tweaked again over a session of pro racing with a number of prototype molds paid for until the Specialized product manager is happy it is ready for next year's release. Better materials and more tooling development costs might add quite a few hundred $$s to the final frame price of a venge that doesn't go into an open mold clone.

So as you'd expect the open mold "knock off" bikes have been getting better and better over the years as the factories learn whats works etc- but there just isn't the economic drive to make them as good or better than what the OEMs require. But they are certainly great bikes for the price in many cases.

Yes there have been cases of really bad work done with some of the 'Chinerallos", but I struggle to believe they are coming out of top name factories. When you are capacity constrained in your factory, why would you bother making some cheap sh!+ that does your company no benefit??

To those who keep claiming these 'cheaper' frames come out of the same factories as the brandname stuff, and made by the same people. How do you know this to be so exactly ?

I can't imagine a brand working with a manufacturer, then finding out the same factory is making cheaper 'similar' looking versions of brandname frames. Also, I would wager that those manufacturers have their hands more than full to keep up with the demand already.

So I'd guess those knockoffs or cheaper versions are made in factories started by ex-workers for brandname manufacturers who decided they could start their own companies with the knowledge they got ? I could be wrong, just seems more logical. It happens all the time..

So I'd guess those knockoffs or cheaper versions are made in factories started by ex-workers for brandname manufacturers who decided they could start their own companies with the knowledge they got ? I could be wrong, just seems more logical. It happens all the time..

Indeed. But isnt that how many of the "boutique" brands started in Europe and the US, a few key employees escaping from BigCo? Where did Dario Pegoretti learn to weld?

The real plus of buying a brand is its accountability, and hence lower risk. Better QC. Possibly a year or so competitive advantage on a "feature", which often is percieved as nothing more than marketing, before the no names copy it- examples include Dimples, Aero road bikes, ISPs, for gods sake? There is an issue when people start saying "its like comparing Gordon Ramsay to cooking it yourself" as youre trying to mystify a process which, fundamentally, doesnt have an awful lot of firm specific assets.

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